leagues mostly by memorandum, occa-
sionally by telephone, and rarely in person,
except when the Court is in session. His
law clerks report that months go by with-
out another Justice visiting his chambers.
Under Chief Justice Rehnquist, most of
the Justices kept their distance from one
another, and this has continued under
Roberts, but Stevens in particular is, while
cordial, remote.
Yet in person Stevens is as genial as he
appears on the bench. He is ever hopeful
about his home-town Cubs, and a de-
voted player, and fan, of golf-"though
I have to confess, I miss Tiger." His
financial-disclosure form lists honorary
memberships in four country clubs-near
Chicago, near Indianapolis, near Wash-
ington, and in Florida. But when, in our
conversation, the subject turned to the
contemporary Supreme Court Stevens's
tone darkened.
I asked him if the center of gravity
had moved to the right since he became
a Justice. "There's no doubt," he said.
"You don't have to ask me that. Look at
Citizens United." He added, "If it is
not necessary to decide a case on a very
broad constitutional ground, when other
grounds are available, then doesn't that
create the likelihood that people will
think you're not following the rules?"
Stevens doesn't pretend that hè s more
in tune with the Court than he is. When
I asked him if there were any cases he es-
pecially regretted, he said, "Dozens. There
are a lot 1'm very unhappy with." The first
two that came to mind: District of Co-
lumbia v. Heller, in which the Court, in
2008, recognized an individual's right to
own weapons under the Second Amend-
ment; and Bush v. Gore, halting the re-
count that the Florida Supreme Court
had ordered in the 2000 Presidential race.
He was in the minority in both.
On some subjects, his own views have
shifted. Writing on affirmative action, in
1980, he noted, "If the National Govern-
ment is to make a serious effort to define
racial classes by criteria that can be admin-
istered objectively, it must study prece-
dents such as the First Regulation to the
Reich's Citizenship Law of November 14,
1935"; yet in 2003 he engineered the pres-
ervation of racial preferences in admis-
sions in a case involving the University of
Michigan Law School. In 1976, he joined
his colleagues in ending a moratorium on
the death penalty; in 2008, he wrote that
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executions are "patently excessive and
cruel and unusual punishment violative
of the Eighth Amendment." Stevens has
always supported abortion rights and an
expansive notion of freedom of speech.
In all areas, Stevens has favored grad-
ual change over sudden lurches and prec-
edent over dramatic overrtÙings. But, es-
pecially since Roberts took over as Chief
Justice, Stevens has found himself con-
fronting colleagues who have a very
different approach-an aggressive, line-
drawing conservatism that appears bent
on remaking great swaths of Supreme
Court precedent.
O n a wall in Stevens's chambers that
is mostly covered with autographed
photographs of Chicago sports heroes,
from Ernie Banks to Michael Jordan,
there is a box score from Game Three of
the 1932 World Series, between the Yan-
kees and the Cubs. When Babe Ruth
came to bat in the fifth inning, at Wrigley
ReId, according to a much disputed base-
ball legend, he pointed to the center-field
stands and then proceeded to hit a home
run right to that spot. The event is known
as "the called shot."
"My dad took me to see the World Se-
ries, and we were sitting behind third base,
not too far back," Stevens, who was twelve
years old at the time, told me. He recalled
.
that the Cubs players had been hassling
Ruth from the dugout earlier in the game.
"Ruth did point to the center-field score-
board," Stevens said. "And he did hit the
ball out of the park after he pointed with
his bat. So it really happened."
Stevens has a reverence for facts. He
mentioned that he vividly recalled Ruth's
shot flying over the center-field score-
board. But, at a recent conference, a man
in the audience said that Ruth's homer
had landed right next to his grandfather,
who was sitting far away from the score-
board. "That makes me warn you that you
should be careful about trusting the mem-
ory of elderly witnesses," Stevens said.
The box score was a gift from a friend;
Stevens noticed that it listed the wrong
pitchers for the game, so he crossed them
out with a red pen, and wrote in the right
names.
This meticulousness is evident in Ste-
vens's judicial writing. Most Supreme
Court Justices, if they write first drafts of
their opinions at all, concentrate on the
legal analysis, which usually includes the
flowery language that gets quoted in
newspapers and textbooks; it is for their
law clerks to write up the facts of the case,
the driest part. Stevens always does the
facts himself (and says he does all the
other drafting, too) . For many years, his
was the only chambers to review individ-
THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 22, 2010 41